Vendors start recall of Sandy Bridge machines

People who have acquired Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer and Toshiba PCs with a flawed Intel chipset will be able to return the machines,
writes Cliff Saran.

Earlier this week Intel said it had discovered a design issue in a recently-released support chip, the Intel 6 Series, code-named Cougar Point.

The company said it "has implemented a silicon fix", which means existing motherboards will not work without physically changing the chipset.

The flaw affects the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipsets, which Intel said may degrade over time, potentially affecting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD-drives.

Dell blogger Lionel Mechaca wrote: "This affects four currently-available Dell products, the XPS 8300, the Vostro 460, the Alienware M17x R3 and the Alienware Aurora R3, as well as several other planned products, including XPS 17 with 3D. We have currently removed the four affected products from Dell.com."

Mark Hopkins, programme manager, Lenovo Social Media, said, "Possible Lenovo models affected may include the latest generation of IdeaPad laptops. Of these, we have shipped a limited number of units with the affected Intel chip worldwide.

"Lenovo is working with Intel on the technical details and will have an update as soon as possible. In the meantime, we want to reassure our customers that Lenovo stands behind its products. If any Lenovo products are affected by this issue, we will work with our customers to find an appropriate remedy. "

According to reports, HP has followed Dell and informed its channel partners to stop shipping the affected machines.

Acer has also announced that it will recall those models that have been hit by the Sandy Bridge problems, stating "
Acer has already stopped shipping the affected products and issued a recall of the machines that might be concerned from all distribution and retail channels."

The chipset flaw is expected to cost Intel $300m (£185m) in lost revenue. The industry impact could well amount to over $1bn according to some reports.

This week, IndependenceIT unveiled the 4.0 version of Cloud Workspace Suite, which features a number of enhancements; Knowledge Vault launched a partner program for its cloud-based analytics-as-a-service platform; and more.

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